


Aimless with Each Other

by cashewdani



Category: Freaks and Geeks
Genre: F/M, Loss of Virginity, Parent Death, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-20
Updated: 2008-08-20
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She knew things had been weird with him and Kim for weeks, but she still didn’t know what to think when he put his hand on her thigh.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aimless with Each Other

Back in May, after Kim had counted up the days on her calendar, she had called Lindsay to tell her they needed to drive three towns over to go buy a pregnancy test. And, Lindsay went with her, because that was what you did when your friend needed you. 

She wanted to ask Kim a lot of things. Had she done this before and what she was going to do after she took the test. Whether Daniel knew and if sex was worth the way she was gripping the steering wheel. But, the radio was blasting as if Kim knew everything that must be rushing around in Lindsay’s head, so, she didn’t say anything.

\---

While they were sitting in the bathroom at some random Stacky’s, because Kim’s mother could not find out about this, she was talking non-stop and Lindsay was just trying to breathe over the smell of floral disinfectant. 

Before the stick had even had a chance to change colors, Lindsay knew it was the first time Kim had thought, really thought, about whether she wanted to be the mother to any of Daniel’s children. How she understood she should have been thinking about that two years ago when she’d slept with him for the first time in his brother’s van, but she just didn’t. Kim was thinking about how she was going to tell Daniel and what they were going to do and how lucky Lindsay was that she was still a perfect little virgin. At any other time that probably would have pissed her off, but then, the first test was positive and so was the second and it didn’t seem right to be angry.

Lindsay just sat there silently on the tile floor with her because she really had no idea what to say. She eventually bought Kim a Coke and told her to drink it while she drove them home, and this time the radio wasn’t even on.

\---

She still hadn’t found any words while Kim had sat sandwiched between her and Daniel in those hard plastic chairs at the free clinic. And before Kim came out of one of the exam rooms in the back, Lindsay listened to Daniel about being scared, and feeling like you got punched in the stomach and that person just would not pull their fist back out.

During the entire conversation he had been looking down at his fingers interlaced between his knees, and then, right before Kim had come running out, he’d looked up at Lindsay and if they had been anywhere else she probably would have kissed him.

But then, Kim had been there in her arms, hugging her, and crying about a false positive and even as Lindsay made congratulatory circles on her back, she had been watching Daniel standing with his hands in his pockets.

\---

In June, at some party some friend of Stroker’s had been having, about a half hour before the cops had shown up, Lindsay had walked into a bedroom where Daniel was crying. And she had known that she should have just closed the door and left it alone, but she’d sat down next to him on the bed while he’d just kept saying, “I must be really drunk” over and over.

She had wound up holding him in this awkward embrace, rubbing the back of his neck, the kind of greasy strands of hair sticking out from under his skull cap. She knew things had been weird with him and Kim for weeks, but she still didn’t know what to think when he put his hand on her thigh. 

By then, he’d stopped crying, and his mouth was on hers instead. He had kissed like she always thought he would, and she went to sleep that night still tasting keg beer and Carmex on her lips.

He’d apologized the next day, calling it a mistake, and she’d tried to act like she didn’t care, but to be honest, she’d been wanting last night to happen since that first time she asked for a cigarette in the parking lot of 7-11.

\---

Even though he’d apologized, and neither he nor Kim would say if they were broken up or still together, and Lindsay had sworn she was too guilty to let this continue, it had kept happening. They were back at school and kissing in the shells of half completed metal shop cars. They were kissing under the bleachers and in Lindsay’s driveway and tucked behind the little alcove where you could hang your coat at the diner. And Lindsay kept waiting for Kim to walk by and catch them, but, it never happened. September became October became November and Lindsay had stopped really worrying about it.

She had tried to talk to Kim after the bathroom, and after the clinic, but Kim didn’t want to talk about anything. She didn’t want to go out, and she didn’t want to see Daniel, and she didn’t want to mention what had happened. And sometimes, when Lindsay looks back on it, she thinks she should have gone over to Kim’s the night of that party. How none of this would have happened if she’d been a better friend.

\---

By December, they hadn’t been kissing so much. They’d moved on to talking and connecting, and Lindsay had been telling him things. Things like sometimes she felt as though she couldn’t even breathe because everyone wanted her to be something, and she didn’t want to be anything. Or that she wished life would just get easier, even a little. Things she never thought she’d say out loud, because that somehow would make them real. And, she hadn’t thought he would understand, but the way he looked at her, really looked at her, she thinks he must. But, he had never told her why he was crying that night in the bedroom and she hadn’t asked.

Daniel had stopped just dropping her off after school. He’d come inside, and sit for awhile. And then he was lingering through dinner even though her father would do everything possible to let Daniel know he didn’t really approve. Daniel would answer his questions, and pass the rolls, and sometimes clench Lindsay’s hand as he grit his teeth to smile. 

Finally, one week before Christmas, he had kept asking her when she’d been kissing him goodnight at the door if she wanted to go for a drive, if she wanted to go anywhere and she asked him the question that’d been on her mind a lot recently. “Why don’t you want to go home?”

She had known his dad wasn’t working and that there was something about an accident and that he didn’t like to talk about it. But, she didn’t know that he was getting worse. She didn’t know that he was going to die right after New Year’s.

And that’s where she is now, right after New Year’s, sitting in the lobby of the funeral home. 

Ken and Nick had gone out back with Daniel to get him high and she was left inside with Kim in the stiff backed chair right next to her. This is the first moment they’ve been alone since May, and for about the billionth time, Lindsay is thinking about the ripple effect and wondering how many ways things could be different right now. 

“It’s stupid that we’re not saying anything to each other, right?” she asks Kim. “I know I messed up, but…”

“But what, Weir? You miss me? Is that it? Or is this whole thing just making you realize how absolutely precious life is?” Kim is bitter and angry and still that raw nerve Daniel was always trying to soothe.

“I do miss you, ok. I do. And I’m sorry that Daniel and I getting together hurt you, but I’m not sorry it happened.”

“Oh, I bet you’re not. You’ve wanted him from day one, and I knew that, but, I trusted you Lindsay! You were supposed to be the one person who didn’t fuck me over like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Lindsay says again, this time without any sort of extrapolation. But then, Mrs. Desario is asking Kim if she’s seen Daniel, like she doesn’t even know who Lindsay is, and she probably doesn’t. 

Lindsay makes a stuttering attempt at condolences, and says she’s going to go and get some air as Kim’s already leading Daniel’s mother into the other room. She finds the guys on the far edge of the parking lot, and looking at Daniel’s red-rimmed eyes in his too small suit makes her chest ache. “Your mom is wondering where you are,” she says, slipping her hand into his. “If you’re ready,” she adds, not knowing how he could be.

They pass the roach around once more, and even Lindsay takes a toke, knowing it won’t really make a difference.

Back inside, she sits with Nick and listens to his description of heaven. It seems to be mostly about drummers and hydroponics.

She tries not to look at Daniel as his mother cries on his shoulder.

\---

Lindsay was supposed to be home over an hour ago, but Daniel keeps driving them in these looping circles, and the look on his face tells her he’s not ready for her to go yet. They pass by the elementary school for the second time and she looks at it through the drizzle.

He’s worn out, and Lindsay understands, in theory. In theory, she knows the kind of crushing grief burying his father has brought on. But, in actuality, she can’t even begin to fathom what it feels like.

She keeps wanting to cry and feeling like she has absolutely no right to do so.

The car smells like his brand of cigarettes and underneath, the faintest hint of floral arrangements she thinks must be caught in their clothes.

They drive, getting further out of town, the night quiet and cold and misty. When Daniel stops in some field, and turns off the headlights, she feels like they’re the only two people on the planet. It’s that dark.

He loosens the burgundy tie at his throat, hands shaking just a little. “I feel like I can’t breathe back there” and she guesses maybe out here it’s a little better. If there’s a thing like better in this situation.

Lindsay climbs into his lap, and kisses him with all of the feelings she has no words for. _I’m sorry and I love you and this isn’t fair and God, I love you, I love you, I love you._

He has his hands up on the inside of her black funeral dress, his tongue in her mouth and tears on his cheeks.

She holds him, and doesn’t think she planned on this, but when he asks her, “Are you sure?” she says yes with no hesitation. Daniel’s slow and careful, but she still has to bite her lip when he moves inside her.

He moans, and scrunches his eyes closed when he comes, and Lindsay wonders what he’s thinking. Collapsed in the backseat, she runs her fingers over his forehead, and wants some things to be different and some things to be the same, and knows it doesn’t really matter what she wants.

He takes her home eventually, and kisses her before she gets out of the car, gentle and light. “Thank you,” he says and it’s so quiet she almost misses it.

Lindsay waits before he pulls away to let go of the sob that’s been suppressed in her ribcage all day. Her mother finds her there, on the front steps in the rain, and Lindsay hugs her like she never wants to let go.

\---

She finds herself standing around by Kim’s locker a lot, hoping their paths will cross and she can maybe apologize again, or just even talk to Kim. Lindsay gets it though. She’s not insulted when Kim starts heading in the other direction whenever she catches sight of her.

Lindsay keeps sleeping with Daniel, even though every time it happens she has to think about it a little more. She has no one but him to confide in, and she’s just hoping she doesn’t end up in a position where that really starts to matter.

Lindsay’s never told him about how that afternoon in the bathroom made her feel even though she knows she’s never going to be able to forget about it.

Every month, she prays for her period, and when it comes, she feels like she has another four weeks for things to get better.


End file.
